Stargate SG-1: Season 8

Synopsis: Jack is still in stasis and SG-1 has no means of contacting the Asgard because the Stargate project is still undergoing an “evaluation process”. But Sam can convince Dr. Weir to borrow the Tel’tak that Jack had refitted. As soon as Sam and Teal’c arrive in Asgard space they meet Thor and together they encounter escape Replicators. In the meantime Dr. Weir and Daniel meet representatives of the System Lords. Ba’al has “obtained” the Kull warriors and a great many of Anubis’s Jaffa. This poses a potential threat to both the System Lords and Earth.

My Opinion: This two-parter was also presented as feature-length film on the DVD. But this episode showed one of the problems of the series: The 30 Ha’taks that attacked Earth were only a small part of Anubis’s fleet. Considering the size of our galaxy that sounds logical. But it doesn’t explain why Apophis’s position amongst the System Lords was weakened a few years ago, just because he had lost 2 ships in the attack on Earth. This is getting out of proportion and it’s getting worse in the next season and I will come back to this topic then.
(On the other hand only 39 Federation ships engaged the Borg cube at Wolf 359, but later 650 ships tried to re-take DS9 [the Klingons not included].)
After this episode the spin-off Stargate Atlantis starts and Dr. Weir becomes the project’s leader. The newly promoted Brigadier General Jack O’Neill becomes the CO of the SGC and the newly promoted Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter becomes the leader of SG-1. One also sees Replicator-Carter for the first time who is called RepliCarter by the fans.

Lockdown

Synopsis: The newly arrived russian Colonel Vaselov would like to become the fourth member of SG-1. At least he wants to go off-world as soon as possible. But then he collapses and has to be brought to the infirmary. After Daniel has shot two soldiers, Jack seals off the mountain to prevent Anubis (who is responsible for all this) from escaping.

My Opinion: A nice hide-and-seek episode but nothing more.

Zero Hour

Synopsis: In five days the president will visit the SGC but Jack’s problems are mounting: An alien plant overgrows the entire base and is hard to defeat. And Ba’al is holding SG-1 hostage and wants the System Lord Camulus who has sought asylum in the SGC.

My Opinion: I am quite sure that this was supposed to be an homage to M*A*S*H because Sgt. Walter Harriman always answered before Jack had asked his question and he had always everything prepared. That makes him similar to his namesake Cpl. Walter “Radar” O’Reilly. I thought that they matched it very well. And Jack actually reminded me of Lt. Colonel Henry Blake.
I also liked the rest of this Jack episode. Jack hasn’t changed much after all.

Disc 2

Icon

Synopsis: After a world war that was implicitly caused by SG1’s arrival on the planet, Daniel is stuck there. A religious leader has overcome his goverment and has the Stargate under his control. With the help of the soldiers of the old administration and some SG teams he tries to regain control over the situation.

My Opinion: This episode failed to give the feeling that you are in a post world war situation. This is mostly due to the fact that we didn’t see much of the planet and what we saw was undamaged.

Avatar

Synopsis: Teal’c is testing a new machine that embeddes the consciousness into a virtual reality. But the program adapts itself and makes winning harder for Teal’c – until he wins no more. Unfortunately Teal’c can only leave after a having completed the scenario. Teal’c is trapped and he could very well die in real life.

My Opinion: Great episode. The First Person Shooter feeling was much better than in the movie Doom. I really liked the scenes when they showed the surveillance monitors in which Teal’c was seen as game character. The way Teal’c ran through the corridors also looked as if he was a player avatar and not a real person. But they should have given Daniel the god mode cheat. 😉

Affinity

Synopsis: Teal’c has moved into his first appartment outside the base. But he has problems to adapt to the lives of “normal” people. However, his neighbours like him, especially the good looking woman next door. But she has also problems of her own.

My Opinion: I also would like to have “T” as a neighbour. 😉 If I hadn’t read Erica Durance’s (Lois Lane in Smallville) name in the intro, I am not sure I would have recognized her. I had the feeling she was much more natural here, in Smallville she seems to be much more factitious and – alarmingly – old. I liked the episode, yet I found it unrealistic that Daniel has gone alone.

Covenant

Synopsis: The industrialist Alec Colson discloses that alien exists in a press conference. He even presents a living Asgard. He got this information because his company has helped to build the F-302 and has analysed a part of the Asgard DNA. But there are forces outside the SGC who also have no interest that the truth comes out.

My Opinion: I liked this episode, too. Especially Carter’s and Thor’s attempts to cover it up with the help of the hologram technology. But the end felt a bit constructed with him having to leave Earth to avoid assassination.

Disc 3

Sacrifices

Synopsis: The Hak’tyl have to abandon their base because the Goa’uld Moloc has learned of it. O’Neill grants asylum to them until they’ve found a new world. Additionally, Rya’c wants to marry one of the Hak’tyl but Teal’c is opposed to this idea. But this gets him in trouble with Ishta.

My Opinion: Very good episode about tradions and role perceptions. I liked it a lot.

Endgame

Synopsis: With the help of the Asgard beam technology the Stargate is stolen directly out of the Gate room. Shortly after this millions of Jaffa die of no obvious cause. While the SGC is trying to reclaim the Stargate, Teal’c (who is stranded at the Alpha Site) tries to find out what has caused the deaths.

My Opinion: The huge handicap of this episode was “Previously on ‘Stargate SG-1′”. They practically spelled the punch line out before they had even shown the first real scene. The secret of the death Jaffa was none to the audience and the “VX gas” was immediately classified as “harmless” in one’s mind.
I was also sad when the rebel Jaffa died, I liked the guy.

Disc 4

From disc 3 on there are only 3 episodes on each disc. Additionally there are a few episodes not in the correct order, but I will watch them chronologically.

Gemini

Synopsis: RepliCarter has come to our galaxy and is the bearer of bad news: Fifth has encoded the Replicator blocks that makes them immune to the disintegration weapon. RepliCarter wants to help Sam breaking the code, because she despises Fifth.

My Opinion: A plan within a plan within a plan. The whole SGC with Sam in the lead acted incredibly dim-witted. It was totally naïve to give a Replicator access to the weapon. Even though they couldn’t have foreseen the plan of RepliCarter, Fifth’s plan wasn’t that unforseeable. The enemy was allowed to analyze the only weapon that can defeat them. There’s no excuse for that.

Disc 3

Prometheus Unbound

Synopsis: Finally a working hyperlight drive was installed on Prometheus. General Hammond explicitly requests Daniel for this mission. They go to Atlantis, because no one has heard of Dr. Weir or her team since they’ve departed. But on the way they walk into a trap and the ship is hijacked by a Kull warrior. The crew is deported to a defective Al’kesh. Only Daniel remains aboard the Prometheus and he tries to stop the Kull warrior.

My Opinion: “The name’s Olo. Hans Olo.” (Daniel) I was practically rolling on the floor laughing. I really liked Claudia Black’s (Aeryn Sun in Farscape) first appearance on the show. And I doubt that it was a coincedence that it strongly resembled her first appearance in the Farscape pilot.
I was well entertained.

Disc 4

It’s Good To Be King

Synopsis: The war between the System Lords and Ba’al is not going well for the former. The Tok’ra have learned that the System Lord Ares wants to retreat to a planet that hasn’t been “visited” by a Goa’uld for quite some time now. This planet has one very special inhabitant: Harry Maybourne.

My Opinion: I liked this episode, too. It was practically the last Planet-of-the-Week episode with the original SG-1 team (including Jack). And Harry as king/prophet was wonderful.
The fact that one didn’t see Ares in person was also a good thing, because there is only one Ares, God of War for me and unfortunately he had been dead for three years at the time of the episode. 🙁

Full Alert

Synopsis: The former vice president Kinsey infiltrates the Trust. The SGC wants to take out this organization once and for all. But something goes wrong and Kinsey disappears without a trace. But then the Russians raise their alert status. They suspect that the White House has been infiltrated by Goa’ulds. The conflict begins to escalate.

My Opinion: The episode didn’t answer the question if the Trust has been destroyed or if an identified amount of Goa’uld is on the loose now. It was an OK episode.

Disc 6

Citizen Joe

Synopsis: The barber Joe Spencer bought a mysterious stone in a garage sale seven years ago. Since then he has the ability to peek into the life and the adventures of an Air Force Colonel called Jack O’Neill. He tells the stories of SG-1 to his customers and his family. But he loses the contact to the real life and is obsessed with writing the stories down. But then he finds out that everything is real.

My Opinion: A very good episode for Dan Castellaneta. Dan is most commonly know for his role as the voice of Homer Simpson, Abraham “Grampa” Simpson, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Willie, Joe Quimby and many others in The Simpsons. Both Richard Dean Anderson and Jack O’Neill are fans of The Simpsons.
I really liked the in-jokes. When Joe tells the story of the asteroid his customer mentions that he has seen the movie and that it will hit Paris (referring to Armageddon). In the actual episode Jack made the very same joke.
They were even self-critical when they admitted that the stories have become a bit repetitive. They also pointed to the unrealistic high number of occasions where SG-1 has saved the world (that hasn’t stopped them from making yet another two seasons though).

Disc 5

Reckoning

Synopsis: RepliCarter is broght before the remaining System Lords who mistook her for the real one. She kills them all, including Yu. After that she begins to take over the entire Goa’uld fleet. Ba’al is forced to battle against the Replicators which gives the rebel Jaffa the opportunity to take the most holy planet to every Jaffa: Dakara. But on Dakara is also a powerful weapon and everyone wants to have it: The Humans, the Replicators – and Anubis.

My Opinion: Now they want to bring it to an end. RepliCarter casually killed the System Lords T-1000 style before the intro and now overruns the remaining forces. But of course there is a super-duper-weapon that can stop her and it happens to be in the place where Teal’c is heading. That ‘s a bit constructed but it’s the grand finale and thus I don’t resent it.

Reckoning, Part 2

Synopsis: On Dakara the future of the galaxy will be decided. The rebel Jaffa are holding the temple and Sam tries to activate the weapon. Then Ba’al’s fleet arrived. Although he works for Anubis he isn’t loyal to him (he is a Goa’uld after all) because his own survival depends on the failure of Anubis’s plan. But then the Replicator fleet also arrives and the war reaches its climax.

My Opinion: They dug deep into the special effects bag of tricks this time. The huge space battle above Dakara was really cool. Although they used archive footage when they opened all Stargates in the galaxy it was still awesome because the imagination has done the rest. The moment where Daniel managed to bring all the Replicators to a hold was great.

Threads

Synopsis: RepliCarter has stabbed Daniel but has been killed by the weapon on Dakara. Daniel is dead but once again he gets the opportunity to ascend. Oma Desala is offering him this again but Daniel learns through the “newspaper” that Anubis wants to destroy avery life in the galaxy and is going to attack Dakara. But Oma must not interfere and there is nothing Daniel can do. None of the ascended – except for Oma and Jim – is even willing to notice his presence.

My Opinion: When I watched the episode for the first time I didn’t realize who “Jim” really is. They killed two birds with one stone with this episode. In the normal world there was simply no way to stop Anubis, this was fairly obvious from the beginning of the season. But they managed to finish his and Oma’s story without making it unrealistic.
But the story about Carter and Jack slowly becomes a neverending story. In JAG it also took an eternity but at least they finished it in the series finale.

Disc 6

Moebius

Synopsis: Although there is a great risk involved, SG-1 (including) Jack undertakes a time travel 5000 years into the past. They want to steal a Zero Point Module from Ra. Since the Goa’uld have never found out what it is they are hoping that the theft won’t change the timeline.
Dr. Daniel Jackson is teacher for English as a second language. Dr. Samantha Carter proof-reads scientific articles. But one day they are contacted by the Air Force. During an excavation a mysterious video tape had been found.

My Opinion: Alternate-Daniel and -Sam are very well portrayed, both come across as nerdy scientists who never achieved anything important. Sam’s speach (in front of no one) about her reproductive organs was a nice reference to the pilot. Jack hasn’t changed at all and that also fits.
First you don’t know the people but once you know them you meet them everywhere. Matthew Bennett (Aaron Doral in Battlestar Galactica) was recently seen in his second appearance on SG-1 (Icon) but as a different character. Now Alessandro Juliani (Lt. Gaeta in BSG) has his second appearance, also as another character.

Moebius, Part 2

Synopsis: The Puddle Jumper that has been lost in the desert for 5000 years has been found. With the help of the retired but reactivated Colonel O’Neill it can be used again. O’Neill, Kawalsky and Sam and Daniel (who are allowed to come along) travel not into the past but to Chulak, where they encounter Teal’c – and Apophis.

My Opinion: When Alternate-Carter mentions that the time machine has to be destroyed I was reminded of Back to the Future. But Doc Brown also wanted to correct the timeline before doing so. The funny thing is that the original Daniel has now helped to drive Ra away from Earth as well as to kill Ra on Abydos. On both occassions he helped to create an uprising.
Technically speaking the four people that are sitting on Jack’s pond aren’t the same people we’ve known for the last eight years. Apart from the fishes that are now in Jack’s pond we don’t know which events we’ve witnessed have happened in this timeline. For example, the fishing trip at the end of Threads doesn’t seem to have taken place. But that’s technically speaking. 😉
It was nonetheless a very good season finale.

The Season – My Opinion: I had the suspicion that Jack’s promotion to General hat the purpose to give Richard Dean Anderson more time off without having to invent excuses. But there is a suprising number of episodes that take place on the base and Jack is in the center of it. But they also continued the trend to concentrate on one character during an episode. But that worked very well for the season.
The final episode of the sixth season was called “Full Circle” and this season accomplished that. The System Lords are defeated, the Replicators are (currently) no thread anymore, Anubis is gone and the Jaffa are free.
In my opinion the last five episodes were the perfect ending for the series. The story has come to an end but there is still room for imagination (e.g. what will now happen with the Jaffa nation).
And that’s the reason I have a stomach ache regarding the next two seasons. While I have watched the first eight seasons more than once, I’e only watched a few episodes of the ninth and none of the tenth season. But I am aware of what will happen, I am just not sure that it will work. It’s kind of sad that a cash cow series is milked to death just to get the last gold coin out of it.